One who is slack in her work is sister to one who destroys.

Proverbs 18:9

Want an easy secret to success? Do your best in everything. It’s so simple that I bet you don’t believe me. So try it, just for a day.

Start in the morning with making your bed the right way, you know, tucking the sheets in so tightly you could bounce a quarter off the bed. Now brush your teeth for two minutes using downward circles that massage the gums. Don’t forget to brush your tongue. Been a while since you flossed? If you want to do your best at cleaning your teeth, you have to floss. Apply the same diligence to showering, styling your hair, applying make-up and getting dressed (be sure your clothes aren’t wrinkled!). Now for a healthy breakfast – two eggs, a piece of whole-wheat toast and half of a grapefruit is just the ticket. I know you’re in a hurry, but if you’re giving your best effort today, you’ll need to wash and put away the dishes you used. Leave the kitchen spotless! It’s off to work or school now to apply this same diligent perfection to every task all day long – and today is just the first day of the rest of your life!

I’m exhausted just joking about doing our best in everything we do. Life goes at a pace such that it seems an impossibility to fully apply ourselves to the hundreds of tasks a day that present themselves, not to mention each personal interaction. The quest for perfection can easily morph into anal-retentive behavior – textbook neurosis for caring more about the details than the big picture.

Perfectionism is a path to insanity but that doesn’t mean we should ditch it completely. What’s needed is moderation. If we desire in our hearts to do our best at everything we do, we will give our available energy to each task. When our resources are exhausted, it’s time to let the rest go. Practically speaking, this might mean we can’t ever seem to keep our nails perfectly manicured. Or maybe alien life forms start to incubate in our shower before we get around to cleaning it. Maybe we throw our clothes in the dryer for five minutes to get the wrinkles out instead of ironing with starch. Maybe we skip a shower on Saturday! We need to cut ourselves some slack on things of little consequence, but when it comes to our relationships, especially with God, our work and studies, we should pursue perfection with abandon.

Though there aren’t enough hours in a day to do our best at everything all the time, there are two things that are quite doable and will make us consistently outshine our coworkers or peers. 1. Show up. 2. Finish. Again, so simple and yet, no joke. If we will commit to 1. being present and 2. completing what we start, we will stand head-and-shoulders above the rest and rise quickly to the head of our class, department, division and our relationships will flourish.

Showing up and finishing are still a long way from our best effort, but if we haven’t got these two down, which most people haven’t, here’s the place to start. Once we see the results we get from this basic commitment, we’ll be inspired to take our performance to a higher level, like showing up on time, well-prepared and injecting creativity into our endeavors.

Easily, I could give a hundred examples from my adult life of how showing up and finishing are exceptional. Here are three that randomly come to mind:

I enrolled in a sign language class. Eleven people started the class, three finished and I was the only one to show up to all of them.

I entered the Peace Corps with a group of 75 carefully screened volunteers – all ready to take on a two-year commitment, come hell or high water. In a few days of predeparture orientation in Miami, we lost five of the group. In the first year in Ecuador, we lost over half of the group. Fewer than 35 volunteers finished the two-year term to which we were all so committed at first.

I taught a community Spanish class at a local church recently. The starting enrollment was 23 students. In the next class, there were 18. We finished the semester with about eight regular students, only four of whom made it to all 10 classes.

It seems lately (in the last 10 years) that it is becoming even less important to most people to stick to a commitment. However, for bosses and teachers, commitment remains as important as ever. The more rare committed individuals become, the more impressive they will be to people in positions of authority. I would prefer to hire a highly reliable person over a highly talented person any day of the week.

If we will show up and stick with each project we undertake until it’s done, we will soon find higher levels of privilege available to us – promotions, raises, honor societies and in relationships, greater trust and intimacy.

How does showing up and finishing apply to a relationship with our Father God? Each day, we need to show up for a little one-on-one time with God. Set a time for coffee, tea or even some burning incense (God likes Frankincense) and soft music (chanting monks will work). Let’s speak to God daily and let God speak to us through the Word and other God-inspired materials. The finishing part depends on what we’ve started. If we started to read the Bible through, finish that. If we’ve committed to singing in a Christmas choir program, finish that. If we give a tenth of our income to God, as we’re instructed to in His word, see that through to the end. The final finish in this relationship, as well as others, may be a long way off, so we must concentrate on showing up to listen and to share of ourselves while finishing all the smaller commitments we make within the relationship. God will reward us with rich blessings and constant care. It is so worth the effort.